Top subcategories

Top subcategories

... War era. Special Operations forces largely replaced frontal assaults with large
forces. Special operators with new technologies replaced large armies with large
weapons systems. After the United States was attacked by a violent NGO in New
York and Washington causing mass destruction, terrorism and a ...

... States – such as members of the Cabinet?
20. Who is the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. military forces?
21. What is the length of a term of office for the
Justices of the United States Supreme Court?
22. Who has the power to review all laws and treaties?
...

... While the European Union is not a military super-power or even a lesser one, nor does it have any plans or need
to become one, all the member states of the European Union do employ national armies. The military capabilities
of the EU countries are increasingly oriented towards crisis-management oper ...

... than the size of its GDP. It still has widespread poverty; approximately 40
percent of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 per
day, and its infant-mortalityrate is over twenty times that of Japan (roughly
equal to that of Namibia). Brazil also has preoccupying domesti ...

... such as military capabilities and natural
resources, while others are intangible such
as patriotism and reputation.
• Thus, sometimes it is difficult ranking
states by power.
•For example, why did USA lose the
Vietnam war??
...

... the other two, the supporting evidence for its different approaches varies on a case by case basis,
which makes it difficult to evaluate a Constructivist interpretation of the war.
Power Transition Theory addresses all of these issues, making it my favored approach
towards examining the Great War. P ...

... crisis of 2010 have caused anxiety about the
stability of the Eurozone, while the recent
protests in Greece and the increasingly
stronger anti-EU voices heard in Britain
threaten to shake the existing stability of
the Eurozone. Additionally, the increasing
numbers of refugees and illegal migrants
wh ...

... with a pair of scale. If the weight in both the scale is equal, there is
balance and it is not equal, then there is no balance. The same analogy
can be applied to international relations. The two states or two alliance
of states are in balance if they are equally powerful. But in case a state
or an ...

... Few would disagree that the previous U.S. administration of George W. Bush Jr. plunged
America’s international reputation to an all-time low. Even as the country staggers to recover
international goodwill under President Barack Obama, a home-grown credit crisis, captured most
strikingly in the colla ...

Soft power

Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is noncoercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. Recently, the term has also been used in changing and influencing social and public opinion through relatively less transparent channels and lobbying through powerful political and non-political organizations. In 2012, Nye explained that with soft power, ""the best propaganda is not propaganda"", further explaining that during the Information Age, ""credibility is the scarcest resource"".Joseph Nye coined the term in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. In this book, he wrote: “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants-might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants.” He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by ""a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."" In 2011, as Xi Jinping was preparing to take power from Hu Jintao, the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party devoted a whole plenary session to the issue of culture, with the final Communiqué declaring that it was a national goal to ""build our country into a socialist cultural superpower"". And in 2014, Xi announced, ""We should increase China's soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China's messages to the world.""According to the 2014 Monocle Soft Power Survey, the United States currently hold the top spot in soft power, being followed by Germany in second place. The top ten is completed by the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and Canada. The Portland Soft Power 30, which includes a foreword by Joseph Nye, ranks the United Kingdom first, with mostly the same countries making up the top ten. The Elcano Global Presence Report ranks the European Union first when considered as a whole.